Best policy innovations of 2011

The Boehner rule: no increase in the debt ceiling without a dollar-for-dollar spending cut. If that is kept for a decade, you really bend down the cost curve.

Joe Mathews, journalist and author; senior fellow at the New America Foundation

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The most important policy innovation this year came not in the U.S. but in Europe.

The 27 countries of the European Union finished designing the first transnational instrument of direct democracy in the world. It’s called the European Citizens’ Initiative. And it gives the people of the 27 member states of the EU the opportunity to introduce legislation directly to the European Commission — the most powerful body in the EU structure — simply by gathering signatures on petitions.

The proponents of the legislation must collect a total of 1 million valid signatures across at least seven EU countries. This is a novel tool of transnational democracy, allowing Europeans to come together and advocate as Europeans — and not merely as citizens of their own country — for legislation. The initiative process also could provide a counterweight for a distant, bureaucratic European government that makes policy transnationally, without facing any kind of transnational democratic accountability.

And this is an idea that could spread. Once the European Commission starts turning down this legislation, it won’t be long before Europeans begin demanding the right to vote on legislation directly — which would give them transnational elections and ballot initiatives. In a world where multinational corporations and government bodies hold so much power, multinational democratic structures and institutions must be built, as well. Europe has made a beginning.

The drawing of electoral districts is among the least transparent processes in democratic governance — and redistricting authorities often block public participation to maintain their influence. The resulting districts tend to embody the goals of politicians and not the interests of individuals and communities.

In January 2011, two Brookings nonresident senior fellows, Michael McDonald and Micah Altman, unveiled their Public Mapping Project — and introduced new open-source redistricting software that allows citizens to draw the boundaries of their communities and generate new redistricting plans via their Web browsers. This technological innovation will make it possible for the public to submit plans to redistricting authorities and to disseminate them widely. According to Brookings Senior Fellow Thomas Mann, this software will dramatically increase needed public participation and transparency in the redistricting process and “empower citizens and groups of citizens to provide a little competition for formal redistricting authorities.”